Winebloggin' Episode I

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Winebloggin' Episode I

[Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of posts written by gadget scribe and libation whiz Christopher Null detailing his experiences with the WinePod home winemaking device. In case you didn't know, Null is a serious expert when it comes to the potent potables: apart from being a total oenology geek, he also runs the blog drinkhacker.com (the essential blog for the discriminating drinker) and is the owner of what has been referred to as "the best home bar in San Francisco."]

By Christopher Null

In the spring, a young wine lover's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of "why can't I make this stuff?"

I've spent weeks touring the wine country. Read dozens of books on vino. Built a wine cellar and stocked it full. I write about wine all the time on my blog at Drinkhacker.com And for years I've been dreaming of making my own wine. A few years ago, we lived at the top of Mount Sutro, and I earnestly planted and tended a few Cabernet vines in the hopes of turning my own grapes into perhaps the city's only locally — grown and — produced wine. Alas, it wasn't meant to be: New grape vines can take years to produce fruit, and given the harsh cold and damp fog that shrouds Twin Peaks all year, those vines may never have produced grapes ripe enough for winemaking. We eventually sold the place and moved to several miles south to a sunnier San Francisco neighborhood, Glen Park... where we don't even have the semblance of a yard.

And so I tried to put the idea out of my mind... but still it gnawed. Even if I couldn't grow the grapes, why couldn't I just buy some like the big guys do and ferment them at home? It's not quite the same, but still sounds like fun... and yet endless hurdles still presented themselves.

If you've ever toured a winery you know what kind of complex operation modern winemaking can be, even on a small scale. In medieval times, they might have stomped some grapes, left them out in the air exposed to wild yeast, waited for the juice to ferment, then tossed in a little crushed gypsum to cut the acidity. Making rotgut is indeed a cinch, but if I'm going to make wine I want to make something drinkable. Something that won't make me go blind. But that requires a whole lot of equipment and even more knowhow not to screw it all up.

Calling the WinePod a gadget would do it a terrible disservice: It is the self-proclaimed "World's First Personal Winery," a freaky alien-looking steel urn that instantly dominates conversation when eyes lay on it.

As the tagline implies, the WinePod takes at least some of the mystery and complexity out of making wine. You dump grapes into the vat, punch a few buttons, and let it do its thing. It's all computerized, and you observe the process via your PC; advisors at WinePod can track your wine online to offer guidance if something goes amiss. In 30 days you have wine that is ready to be aged in a barrel. A few months after that, the wine is ready to bottle and drink.

That's the theory, anyway.

After encountering them at a wine trade show, the WinePod people graciously agreed to set me up with the device — $4,499 retail — so I could experience the process firsthand and write about it here. And today, a truck pulled up with the 'Pod in its belly and a crash course in winemaking in store for me. Here we go...